5
The catastrophic “no”
For the record, I tried to keep my distance.
The problem was that the black thread of fate (not red, which is for love) had me bound to the Cash brothers, and the more I tried to stay away from them, the more I was dragging out the catastrophic showdown.
But I tried my best, I swear. I stayed clear of places I knew they’d be.
That’s what Artie had meant, wasn’t it? In much the same way, the days that followed were unsettlingly normal.
That’s how I discovered that Tagus wasn’t so bad after all.
Artie, Kiana, and Dash showed me around some places on campus that I was unfamiliar with, and we ignored the whispers and prying eyes.
They tried asking me about my family or where I came from, but I made it clear that stuff like that was off-limits.
I’ll talk to you about that another time, when the moment comes.
However, I did gather useful information, because that’s what I was good at. I’ll fill you in.
Did you know that the Cash brothers’ father, Adrien, donated a ton of money to Tagus, alongside three other prominent families in the state, the Denverses, the Watsons, and the Santors?
Did you know that there was a whole hallway lined with trophies, most of which belonged to some Cash or another, either dead or alive?
Anyway, everything was going all right. Until Friday.
I had some free time before my last class and was sitting at one of the canteen tables across from Artie.
She was saying she wanted to be part of the planning team for the founders’ anniversary fair in a few months, and all I could hear was “blah, blah, blah, speech, blah, blah, blah, Ferris wheel, blah, blah, blah, extra points . . .” I was about to stuff a potato into my mouth when I saw who was coming over her shoulder.
Aegan.
He was making his way across the canteen—somewhere Artie said he never set foot. And, worst of all, the idiot really had style. He was wearing a brown jacket with a white shirt underneath, jeans, and braided boots. He had a stunning watch on, and his jet-black hair was perfectly disheveled.
Where the hell had he gotten that outfit? From Pinterest?
I hated to admit it, but he looked great. Why did wickedness always seem to go hand in hand with being hot? It was so unfair.
He reached the table sooner than I’d have liked, and it wasn’t until he sat down beside Artie, carrying himself like a king, that she even noticed he was there.
“Oh, fuck, Aegan . . .” She flinched slightly, and her glasses slid down to the tip of her nose.
He greeted her with just a flick of his fingers. Then he turned to me with a playful, teasing expression on his face.
“I haven’t been in here for years,” he said without even bothering to say hello. “Do they still serve those mashed potatoes that look like cement?” he continued.
I squinted, as suspicious as a soldier who’d just been forced to sit down with the enemy. Why was he talking like we were besties?
I didn’t say hello either.
“What do you want?” I blurted out.
Aegan held his hands out, acting shocked. “From this meal?” he shot back, scrunching his nose. “Nothing, I never liked the food here.”
“What’re you doing at our table, Aegan?” I asked again, this time more specifically.
He blinked.
“Why are you asking like that?” he asked, pretending to be stunned. “As far as I know, anyone can sit here.”
“Anybody . . . ?” Fuck. “Well, in our case, we reserve the right of admission,” I said, changing my voice to sound friendlier than I wanted to be.
“You can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “Besides, you sat at my table, so I’m sitting at your table; I don’t see what the difference is.”
“The difference is that you asked for a volunteer that night,” I explained. “We haven’t asked anyone to come near us.”
Aegan pretended to be surprised again by blinking, then leaned subtly toward Artie.
“Wow, is she always this hostile?” he asked her in a softer tone, without taking his eyes off me.
Artie said nothing. She was uncomfortable.
I pushed the tray away to let him know that he’d spoiled my lunch and would continue to ruin it just by being there. I fixed him with a stern look.
“Well, let’s get to the point,” he sighed, taking pity on my impatience. “I’ll pick you up at seven o’clock tonight.”
“Huh?” I said, like I’d just heard something completely insane.
“I’ll come by at seven o’clock, so be ready,” he repeated slowly.
It felt like I was hearing one of those irritating jokes that was more annoying than funny.
“And you’ll do that because . . .”
“Because we’re going out,” he replied, as if it were obvious. “What else do you need to know? We’ll go for dinner, chat, and then we’ll see where things go from there.”
I blinked, really confused. I even cocked my head to one side like a puppy reacting to an unfamiliar noise. “You and I are going out?” I repeated to make sure I wasn’t hearing things.
He nodded.
I gave a fake thoughtful pout, interlaced my fingers over the table, and then looked at him even more confused.
“Excuse me.” I forced a fake, friendly smile before asking, “When did you ask me and when did I agree? Because I don’t seem to recall.”
Aegan laughed without parting his lips, very sure of himself. “That’s what you want, so that’s what you’ll get.”
Okay, his self-confidence was pretty impressive—impressively stupid.
“When did you decide that?” I asked again, bewildered. “When I called you an asshole or when I left the table at the poker game so I wouldn’t have to see your stupid face anymore?”
“When you sat down at that table and took me on,” he pointed out, with his eyes now narrowed, “you wanted my attention, didn’t you? Well, now you’ve got it.”
I couldn’t believe it. On the inside, I was laughing. On the outside, all I could muster up was an expression that said, Really? Is your insufferable mouth really saying this?
“So, you’re saying you’d rather interpret what happened on games night as me being an attention-seeker than see it for what it actually was?” I said.
Aegan arched his eyebrows, looking amused. “So, what was it then?”
“A way to show you that you can’t always win,” I clarified, in a serious tone.
He broadened his smile. There were some indentations around the corners of his mouth.
He had a wide, masculine, mischievous mouth that reminded me of the actor Michael Fassbender’s, only Fassbender represented everything that was right in life and Aegan was everything that was wrong with it.
“Whatever happens, I’ll see you at seven o’clock,” he simply said, having the final word. He tapped his knuckles on the table and stood up, ready to leave.
But then I blurted out, loud and clear, “No.”
Aegan paused and turned back to the table. His bushy eyebrows were furrowed, but his triumphant smile was still spread across his face.
“What?” he asked me as if he’d just heard a pointless joke.
I tapped on the table just as he’d done and stood up to face him. Face-to-face, I was quite a bit shorter, but I was able to hold his gaze.
“I’m not going out with you because I don’t want to,” I repeated with unwavering determination.
And quite a few people heard me. Suddenly, I felt like all eyes were on me, heavy, curious, and critical, but I didn’t look around or pay any heed to them. I kept my focus on Aegan’s mocking gray eyes, so that he’d know I really meant what I’d said.
He understood.
The corners of his mouth slackened just like they had on games night, and his expression grew serious, almost stern.
Seeing that, I threw him a triumphant smile and gently patted his shoulder.
“You’d better try the other nine on your list.”
I grabbed my backpack, my tray, and headed down the canteen hallway without looking back. I reached the bottom, emptied the tray, and walked out, making a grand exit that may not have looked triumphant but sure as hell felt like it was.
I joined the flow of students in the main hallway. I was walking, yet my legs felt numb. I didn’t even realize Artie had followed me until she was beside me, panting from running.
“Jude, you’ve got balls of steel!” she exclaimed, trying to keep up while struggling to talk and breathe at the same time. “You made him look like a total ass!”
“Like what?” I asked, laughing nervously. “What do you mean?”
“Surprised, choked, in shock, lost for words,” she clarified, before playing it down. “The point is, turning him down was epic. Although, as soon as another girl says yes, it’ll all be forgotten.”
True, I had shut Aegan up, but that was basically like giving him a bad haircut: ultimately, nothing would come of it. He’d feel embarrassed and angry for a while, but eventually his hair would grow back, and the haircut would fade into nothing more than an amusing memory he’d slowly forget.
“I did it without even thinking,” I confessed. What I had really wanted to do was break his nose.
“Well, never mind,” she sighed. “It’s a good thing a girl has put him in his place at least once in his life. Really, nobody will ever forget what you’ve just done.”
Of course not. Tagus forgot nothing. Except what was best left forgotten.
Artie asked me if I wanted to go have one of those strange healthy smoothies and chill at her favorite spot: Bat-Fit, a place for those trying to hack the natural process of aging and death through exercise.
Why didn’t people just go for coffee anymore? Then again, Bat-Fit wasn’t bad. It had loads of large windows and outdoor tables surrounded by a garden. Obviously everything, even down to the toilet paper in the bathrooms, was eco-friendly.
When we arrived, Dash and Kiana were at one of those tables, so we went straight to them.
I plopped hard onto the chair and let out a long breath.
“Uh, I sense some anger around here,” Kiana said as she raised an eco-friendly glass to her lips.
“I feel like I could rip the Statue of Liberty out and throw it to Timbuktu,” I mumbled. I threw my backpack onto the ground next to me.